


Enthusiastic Consent (under the mistletoe)

by Anti_kate



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate
Summary: Written for the Good Omens advent calendar.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 115





	Enthusiastic Consent (under the mistletoe)

“I thought you didn’t celebrate Christmas,” Pepper said as she watched Anathema tack up another swathe of mistletoe on the door between the living and dining rooms.

  
“Mistletoe is a pagan symbol,” Anathema said absently, “which was appropriated by Christians as part of their attempt to convince the pagans that Christmas was basically the same thing as Yule.”

  
Pepper nodded at this, because her mother had strong opinions about appropriation.

  
Anathema continued, “and it was considered a symbol of male virility because the white berries look like-” and then stopped herself, glancing down at the four children sitting in her living room.

  
As usual, Wensleydale and Brian were more concerned with eating as many of her biscuits as possible, and she could see Pepper had begun mentally composing a letter to the editor of the Tadfield Observer about the horrors of Christianity coopting pagan rituals, so only Adam seemed to be listening. Still, she didn’t want a repeat of the whole Halloween debacle, when Brian’s parents had accused her of satanism.

  
“Like special berries,” she finished, weakly. “Which are edible. If you’re into that sort of thing. Except mistletoe berries aren’t. So don’t eat them. Brian, I’m talking to you.”

  
“What’s that got to do with kissing?” Adam asked after a moment. “Dad always hangs it up in the kitchen and then says Mum has to kiss him every time she stands under it, and then her chases her around until she does. It’s so disgusting.”

  
The other three shuddered at the image.  
Anathema carefully considered her reply. “Well, mistletoe was associated with fertility, so...”

  
The three boys exchanged worried glances, and Adam’s mouth started forming another question.

  
“It’s about sex, Adam,” Pepper said in her most smugly patronizing tone, before he could speak.

  
“Ewwww,” Brian said, and Wensleydale made vomiting sounds, and Adam looked horrified, and then even more horrified as his mental gears spun around.

  
“Hey! You said people shouldn’t kiss each other unless they both want to,” he said accusingly to Anathema. “So why are you hanging mistletoe everywhere if it’s to make people kiss? And, and, and do sex stuff? What about _enthusiastic consent?_ ”

Anathema finished the job and stepped down the ladder.

“The principle of enthusiastic consent still applies, because I’m not trying to make anyone kiss,” she said. “But, if two people who like each other very much _but happen to be too stupid to act on it_ should stand under the mistletoe, perhaps it might give them an excuse.”

  
Four sets of uncomprehending eyes looked at her. At that moment Newt appeared from the kitchen, with a tray of devilled eggs, which he set on the dining room table. Then he spotted the mistletoe over Anathema’s head and fluttered his eyelashes at her hopefully.

  
“Use your words, Newt, we’re modelling healthy behaviour for the children,” she said.

  
“Oh, ok. Fancy a snog?”

  
At that The Them all made more disgusted faces.

  
“Not right now,” she replied, and he grinned cheerfully and went back to the kitchen.

  
“See, it’s just a suggestion. Not a requirement. Now, who wants to help me light some candles?”

  
“My mum says candles are the second leading cause of household fires in winter,” Pepper began, but the doorbell rang, and the first guests at Anathema’s winter solstice party began to arrive.

  
...

  
Anathema threw great parties, everyone agreed, even the villagers who thought she was far too American and far too strange. The main thing was that she provided truly astonishing amounts of the booze, which overcome those glaring deficiencies.

  
She knew the booze was the only reason Crowley had agreed to come. Certainly not because a certain angel would have made sad eyes at him when he’d said he didn’t want to go. Or because Anathema had threatened to curse him if they didn’t show up.

  
“If I hear even so much as a hint of Mariah Carey I’m leaving,” Crowley hissed at her as they came into the house. She gave him a wide smile. He might have intimidated someone else, but last weekend he’d called her at 3am ranting drunkenly about how _dense_ and _stupid_ a certain angel was, and how it had been 6000 years, and how on earth was it not _bloody obvious_ by now?

  
“This is a Mariah Carey-free-zone,” she said, taking the bottle of wine from the demon and the Harrod’s hamper from the angel.

  
She kept an eye on them during the party. Aziraphale had a knack of getting deep into the conversational weeds with middle aged women about their husbands‘ shortcomings, while Crowley seemed to circle around the party and always end up hovering around Aziraphale until he was driven to find more alcohol.

  
After she judged they were both drunk enough to have loosened up but not so drunk enough as to make things weird, she maneuvered Aziraphale into the doorway between the kitchen and living room, and then told him to wait there while she fetched a book she wanted him to evaluate.

  
Then she found Crowley. He’d cornered Newt and was saying, loudly, “Die Hard isssn’t a Christmas movie, it just happens to be set during Christmas. It’s like, Fairytale of New York is not a Christmas song, it’s just set during Christmas.”

  
She took Crowley’s arm before Newt could begin an argument. “Quick!” She said to him. “Mistletoe!”

  
Crowley looked at her as if she’d grown another head. “What?”

  
“He’s standing under the mistletoe. Go on!” She shoved him as hard as she dared in the direction of the angel.

  
Crowley slithered up and tapped the angel on the shoulder, then ducked to his other side so Aziraphale was looking the wrong way. _What an utter child_ , she thought.

  
Aziraphale’s whole face lit up when he saw the demon, even though they’d literally been speaking not ten minutes before.

  
They were both idiots.

  
Then Crowley gestured at the doorframe above them, giving one of his insincere grins, and Aziraphale looked up, and went bright red, and then they stared at each other.

  
Anathema willed Crowley to make a move, but he seemed utterly frozen.

  
And then Aziraphale reached up, put his hands on the demon’s shoulders, and kissed him.

  
“Oh,” Adam said, popping up by Anathema’s shoulder. “Is that what you meant by enthusiastic consent?”

  
“Yeah,” she said, taking the boy’s arm and steering him away from the sight of the oldest people in the world kissing as if they’d been thinking about it for millennia, which, after all, they had. “How about some hot cocoa?”

**Author's Note:**

> Mistletoe was a fertility symbol because the berries looked like semen, says the Internet, and is the Internet ever wrong? I think not.


End file.
